September 4th, 2007
Novell massages the numbers
Is Novell looking to get bought?
That’s the best excuse I can give for its latest earnings report, where one-time cuts to marketing made for narrower losses and a good pop to the stock.
Despite the “good news” of its win over SCO, and its deal with Microsoft, Novell continues to lose money. Millions of dollars each quarter.
Novell has gotten good at this Wall Street game. The last time its stock traded this high was at the time of its last earnings release, in May. There was also speculation then of a private equity buy-out.
Novell is also good at PR. It has been talking about desktop Linux being just around the corner for years, without delivering anything worthwhile. No wonder I get such a hit to the numbers here for mentioning Ubuntu.
This continuing game of massaging numbers and expectations, rather than delivering solid performance or solid software, hurts the whole open source market.
Having covered Novell for two decades, I’m frankly tired of it. Wall Street, not so much. As long as there is action Wall Street is happy.
Novell reminds me of those Royal Bank of Scotland ads, the ones where everyone is panicky until the guy in the suit pushes a button. Novell is a part of this chattering class.
Make something happen, Novell. Is this how it looks to y’all? Or am I just cranky this morning?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/04/07
